Comments on: The First Step Is Admitting You Have a Problemhttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/
Weddings. Minus the insanity, plus the marriage.Sat, 10 Dec 2016 04:16:00 -0800hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1By: Heather Vhttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/#comment-162699
Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:33:18 +0000http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/03/the-first-step-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem/#comment-162699This post really hit home for me. I am a chronic non-decider, so much so that in high school, a boyfriend broke up with me because he got so frustrated that I wouldn’t voice my opinions! My problem is twofold.

For one, I do have opinions, and I do voice them about big, important things, as previous posters have said. But most of the time, I’m pretty content no matter where we go for dinner, so I honestly don’t have an opinion on it or other seemingly insignificant (or really similar) things.

Secondly, I am the type that wants to analyze every single option, weigh all the pros and cons, and make a decision when I have all the information I could possibly need so that I can make the RIGHT decision, whatever that may be. Most of the time, this just ends up exhausting me and I end up deferring. Thanks again for the great post, I’m definitely working on this problem, especially now that I’m planning a wedding!

]]>By: CJhttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/#comment-162571
Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:16:38 +0000http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/03/the-first-step-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem/#comment-162571I concur wholeheartedly about the things you care least about being the most difficult. I think my astounding unspecificity of desires likely comes from being the second oldest of six kids (girl-boy(me)-girl-girl-girl-boy, in almost perfect biennial steps). There was not much hope of my opinion counting for much, so I learned how to be content with virtually any outcome.

Definitely went through a doormat stage, there, but eventually I learned how to be content while still having opinions. Everyone in my family *loved* homemade hamburgers and french fries; I loathed them. One day when we were having the infinity-and-a-thirdth hamburgers and french fries supper, I finally snapped (gently but firmly). I told my parents that I’d just find something else to eat. That’s when something *utterly* *shocking* happened: They were *fine* with that!

Fast forward many years, and now I’m having to learn that while mb is also very accommodating, one thing that is apparently rather important to *her* is that *I* can make decisions (including, or perhaps especially, the insignificant ones). She’s learned that I really *am* perfectly content with eating pretty much anywhere, and I’m learning that when she asks me where we should go eat, she’s not looking for the perfect answer, just *an* answer. If it’s an answer that’s “wrong” for her at that moment, she’ll say so and we can go on from there, but reenacting the vulture scene from Disney’s Jungle Book (“So, what we gonna do?” “I don’t know, whatcha wanna do?”) is very frustrating to her.

I’m gradually accepting that my engineering background doesn’t mean everything has to be optimal, and I’m discovering internal ways I can choose from a plethora of statistically equivalent choices — everything from “Hmm, today’s date is divisible by five, so I’ll suggest Five Guys” to “It’s Thursday, which reminds me of never getting the hang of Thursdays, which reminds me of the liquid almost but not quite exactly unlike tea, which is a good description of coffee, which is in her favorite tiramisu, so how about Carrabba’s” to puns the depths of which I will not burden you with.

Making insignificant decisions (however arbitrarily) doesn’t mean that I’d be any less content with any outcome whatsoever, but if it makes mb happier and is irrelevant to me, I’ll gladly do it. Plus, the more I do it, the more convoluted the internal justifications can be, which entertains me to no end. Sometimes I even share the reasons with her, — they tend to get me some *really* funny looks. :D

]]>By: Katie Maehttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/#comment-162513
Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:45:26 +0000http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/03/the-first-step-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem/#comment-162513“often times I do this shirking-of-opinions because I don’t want to be “wrong.” And “wrong” also means a lot of things for me, mostly having to do with how another person (my partner, my mother, my friends) will view me.”

Oh, Kelly, I’m right there with you. It’s a rough habit.

]]>By: Katie Maehttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/#comment-162510
Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:41:30 +0000http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/03/the-first-step-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem/#comment-162510When I was little, I made my best friend cry at our fake tea party. I asked, “would you care for some tea?” and when she said yes, I set down the teapot. I thought the affirmative answer was “no” because in my experience, “I don’t care” meant “fine, sure.”

There are definitely some confusing phrases with the word “care!” I agree that “I don’t mind” is more neutral.

]]>By: Kayjayohhttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/#comment-162346
Tue, 26 Mar 2013 02:27:27 +0000http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/03/the-first-step-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem/#comment-162346Ah, avoiding bridge tolls makes sense. (I live in a state with no toll roads or bridges at all.)

Part of me had been wondering if it were some kind of superstition. :)

]]>By: Carriehttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/#comment-162292
Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:15:27 +0000http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/03/the-first-step-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem/#comment-162292You are a genius.
]]>By: KChttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/#comment-162270
Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:26:32 +0000http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/03/the-first-step-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem/#comment-162270I totally agree that out of town people should either not have to deal with tolls or should be warned in detail ahead of time – that’s a super-considerate thing to do!

(says someone who had “an adventure” dropping a friend off at an airport once. I knew there were tolls part of the way, but I was used to normal toll booths taking debit cards [which, in place-we-had-just-moved-to, hey, guess what? They don’t; cash or prepurchased widget only.], and I was used to tolls being under $6 or whatever, not tolls being over $20 in total. After using up all the loose change and cash in my purse and in the car and under the seats, etc., on the way home I ended up having to ask the last tollbooth operator who I had the money to pay where the nearest ATM was, which meant having to get off the toll road in an unknown random spot to eventually find an ATM tucked inside a scruffy-albeit-friendly convenience store in a really, really dodgy neighborhood [like, people hiding in the shadows of buildings making “transactions” and most people avoiding the streetlights dodgy] and then trying to find my way home from there, which worked eventually, but… yeah. Not so fun.)

]]>By: Colleenhttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/#comment-162269
Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:23:56 +0000http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/03/the-first-step-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem/#comment-162269Just wanted to say that this isn’t the first time I’ve read about Meg’s parents doing really great things that I now want to add to my Parenting toolbox. As a person who grew up in a family of non-deciders, I think that teaching kids–and especially girls–to state an opinion and back it up is invaluable. Thanks for this!
]]>By: ElisabethJoannehttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/#comment-162243
Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:34:29 +0000http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/03/the-first-step-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem/#comment-162243Welcome to the San Francisco Bay Area. There were 4 toll bridges within an hour’s drive of the church. So that restriction was in addition to the typical “can’t be more than x miles/y minutes from the ceremony venue.”

[I’m agnostic on what x and y should be in general for weddings, but I at least didn’t want out-of-town guests to deal with the complication of a bridge. Incidentally, I have an etiquette book from 1958 with a fictional example of a wedding ceremony in San Francisco with the reception across the Golden Gate in Marin, so I guess etiquette doesn’t demand my “no bridges” rule.]

]]>By: Stephaniehttp://apracticalwedding.com/kicking-the-indecision-habit/#comment-162195
Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:46:33 +0000http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/03/the-first-step-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem/#comment-162195This post seriously just strikes home for me. I’m a non-decider in the process of trying to transition to a more decider-y lifestyle. I always defer. Almost always. Sometimes, it’s because I actually don’t care about the outcome, but more often than not it’s a way to make someone else happy, which in turn, I believe will make me happy. But when it doesn’t…yikes. Then I’m kicking myself like you must have been doing while sweeping up your broken car door glass, and I know that the regret feels worse than I might have felt if I spoke up in the first place.

The thing about trying to transition from non-decider to decider is that it’s easy to take a first step and say ‘WAIT! WHAT ABOUT ME AND THIS DECISION I WANT TO MAKE?!”. But once someone starts fighting back about the decision, then it gets really really hard to stick to your guns. Because on the one hand, you want your opinion to be heard and matter. But on the other hand, you’re a non-decider by nature…and your instinct is to go back to deferral. I’m still trying to figure it out (obviously) but I salute you for deciding to kick the habit. It’s nice to know there’s other people out there who feel this way, and that I’m not alone in struggling to carve out my own way!